UTEP men's basketball: NMSU soars past Miners

NMSU wins battle on boards, pulls away to 86-73 win over UTEP

NMSU's Sim Bhullar take as shot against his UTEP defender Cedric Lang on Friday at the Pan American Center. (Robin Zielinski/Las Cruces Sun-News)

LAS CRUCES >> And then a little turned into a lot.

UTEP and New Mexico State were locked into one of those typical rivalry games -- tight and tense and intense. But the Aggies were shooting a little better, defending a little better and rebounding a lot better.

Slowly, gradually, the Aggies turned the tense affair into a fun affair -- fun for the Aggies and Aggie fans.

New Mexico State led 56-51 with 9:53 to play and then romped home -- attacking the rim, getting to the free throw line and bludgeoning the Miners on the boards -- for an 86-73 win in front of 10,019 mostly-Aggie fans Saturday night in the Pan American Center.

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"They just took it by us," UTEP coach Tim Floyd said. "Just took it by us and by us and by us. Their big guys whipped us on the glass. The thing we take away from this is that you are pitiful defensively. Absolutely pitiful. I've never had a team leave the basket that exposed."

New Mexico State was led by guard Daniel Mullings, who finished with 26 points. Sim Bhullar, the 7-foot-5 space eater, had 11 points and four other Aggies had nine points each.

Freshman Vince Hunter led UTEP with 16 points, Julian Washburn had 15 and McKenzie Moore had 12. Cedrick Lang, who scored nine points, led the miners in rebounding with seven.

But this game funneled down to two areas -- Aggie shooting and Aggie rebounding.

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NMSU shot a scorching 72.2 percent in the final half, making 13-of-18 shots. The Aggies drove the ball to the hoop and got layups and also got fouled. That led them to shoot a whopping 47 free throws (32 good ones).

The Aggies outrebounded the Miners 37-23 ... dominating the glass, keeping the ball alive, keeping it away from the Miners.

"Obviously, I'm really pleased with the result," Aggie coach Marvin Menzies said. "But I'm even more pleased with how we got it done. That was a good team effort. UTEP does so many different things (defensively), it's hard to stay in a rhythm, a tempo."

The Miners opened the game in a trapping zone, went quickly to their staple, the man-to-man, and then tried such things as a box-and-one, a triangle-and-two, and a 1-3-1 halfcourt trap in the second half.

"We picked up seven fouls in the first three minutes and we were afraid of fouling the rest of the game," Floyd said. "So we tried to play zone. If you won't let us play man-to-man, we'll play zone. But let me make one thing clear. The officials had nothing to do with us getting whacked. We were pathetic. Pathetic."

Still, the Miners were right there until that 9:53 mark. They trailed 37-33 at the half. They trailed 47-43 with 14:37 to go and 47-45 with 13:30 to play.

Mullings, who was a pivotal player in this two act play, said, "In the second half, especially, I was kind of aggressive. Our big men demand so much attention, it opens it up for us. Having a game like this ... it makes it a lot better doing it against UTEP, against our rivals."

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